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Gordian III – Roman Emperor: 238-244 A.D. –
Bronze 23mm (7.49 grams) of Deultum in Trace 238-244 A.D.
Reference: Moushmov 3718v
IMP C GORDIANVS PIVS AVG, radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
COL FL PAC DEVLT, Marsyas holding a wineskin, standing right and holding right
hand up, based on the statue in the forum in Rome.
You are bidding on the exact
item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime
Guarantee of Authenticity.
In
Greek mythology
, a satyr is one of
a troop of male companions of
Pan
and
Dionysus
with
goat-like (caprine) features, including a goat-tail, goat-like ears,
and sometimes a goat-like phallus. In Roman Mythology there is a similar concept
with goat-like features, the
faun being half-man, half-goat. Greek-speaking Romans often use the
Greek term saturos when referring to the Latin faunus, and
eventually syncretize the two. The female “Satyresses”
were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths
they are often associated with pipe-playing.
The satyrs’ chief was
Silenus
, a minor deity associated (like
Hermes
and
Priapus
) with fertility. These characters can
be found in the only complete remaining
satyr play
, Cyclops, by
Euripides
, and the fragments of
Sophocles
‘
Ichneutae
(Tracking Satyrs). The
satyr play was a short, lighthearted tailpiece performed after each trilogy of
tragedies in Athenian
festivals honoring Dionysus
. There is not
enough evidence to determine whether the satyr play regularly drew on the same
myths as those dramatized in the tragedies that preceded. The groundbreaking
tragic playwright
Aeschylus
is said to have been especially loved
for his satyr plays, but none of them have survived.
Attic painted vases
depict mature satyrs as
being strongly built with flat noses, large pointed ears, long curly hair, and
full beards
, with
wreaths
of vine or ivy circling their balding
heads. Satyrs often carry the
thyrsus
: the rod of
Dionysus
tipped with a pine cone.
Satyrs acquired their
goat-like aspect through later Roman conflation with
Faunus
, a carefree
Italic
nature spirit of similar characteristics
and identified with the Greek god
Pan
. Hence satyrs are most commonly described
in Latin literature as having the upper half of a man and the lower half of a
goat, with a goat’s tail in place of the Greek tradition of horse-tailed satyrs;
therefore, satyrs became nearly identical with
fauns. Mature satyrs are often depicted in Roman art with goat’s
horns
, while juveniles are often shown with
bony nubs on their foreheads.
About Satyrs, Praxiteles gives a new interpretation on the subject of free
and carefree life. Instead of an elf with pointed ears and repulsive goat
hooves, we face a child of nature, pure, but tame and fearless and brutal
instincts necessary to enable it to defend itself against threats, and survives
even without the help of modern civilization . Above all though, the Satyr with
flute has a small companion for him, shows the deep connection with nature, the
soft whistle of the wind, the sound of gurgling water of the crystal spring, the
birds singing, or perhaps the singing a melody of a human soul that feeds higher
feelings. As Dionysiac creatures they are lovers of wine and women, and they are
ready for every physical pleasure. They roam to the music of pipes (auloi),
cymbals
,
castanets
, and
bagpipes
, and they love to dance with the
nymphs
(with whom they are obsessed, and whom
they often pursue), and have a special form of dance called
sikinnis
. Because of their love of wine, they
are often represented holding wine cups, and they appear often in the
decorations on wine cups.
In
Greek mythology
, the
satyr
Marsyas (Ancient Greek:
Μαρσύας) is a central figure in two
stories involving death: in one, he picked up the double flute (aulos)
that had been abandoned by
Athena
and played it; in the other, he
challenged Apollo
to a contest of music and lost his hide
and life. In
Antiquity
, literary sources often emphasise the
hubris
of Marsyas and the justice of his
punishment.
Marsyas under Apollo’s punishment;
İstanbul Archaeology Museum
.
In one conjunction
Rhea
/Cybele,
and his episodes are situated by the mythographers in
Celaenae
(or Kelainai) in
Phrygia
(today, the town of
Dinar
in
Turkey
), at the main source of the
Meander
(the river
Menderes
).
When a genealogy was applied to him, Marsyas was the son of
Olympus
(son of
Heracles
and
Euboea
, daughter of
Thespius
), or of
Oeagrus
, or of Hyagnis. Olympus was,
alternatively, said to be Marsyas’ son or pupil.
The finding of the
aulos
Marsyas was an expert player on the double-piped
reed instrument
known as the
aulos
. In the anecdotal account, he found the
instrument on the ground where it had been tossed aside with a curse by its
inventor, Athena
, after the other gods made sport of how
her cheeks bulged when she played. The 5th-century poet Telestes doubted that
virginal Athena could have been motivated by such vanity, but in the 2nd century
AD, on the
Acropolis of Athens
itself, the voyager
Pausanias
saw “a statue of Athena striking
Marsyas the Silenos for taking up the flutes that the goddess wished to be cast
away for good.”
Marsyas and Apollo
In the contest between Apollo and Marsyas, the terms stated that the winner
could treat the defeated party any way he wanted. Since the contest was judged
by the
Muses
, Marsyas naturally lost and was
flayed
alive in a cave near Celaenae for his
hubris
to challenge a god. Apollo then nailed
Marsyas’ skin to a pine tree, near
Lake Aulocrene
(the Turkish Karakuyu Gölü),
which Strabo
noted was full of the
reeds
from which the pipes were fashioned.
Diodorus Siculus
felt that Apollo must have
repented this “excessive” deed, and said that he had laid aside his lyre for a
while, but
Karl Kerenyi
observes of the flaying of Marsyas’
“shaggy hide: a penalty which will not seem especially cruel if one assumes that
Marsyas’ animal guise was merely a masquerade.” Classical Greeks were unaware of
such
shamanistic
overtones, and the Flaying of
Marsyas became a theme for painting and sculpture. His brothers, nymphs, gods
and goddesses mourned his death, and their tears, according to
Ovid‘s
Metamorphoses
, were the source of the river
Marsyas
in
Phrygia
, which joins the
Meander
near Celaenae, where Herodotus reported
that the flayed skin of Marsyas was still to be seen, and
Ptolemy Hephaestion
recorded a “festival of
Apollo, where the skins of all those victims one has flayed are offered to the
god.” Plato
was of the opinion that it had been made
into a wineskin
.
There are alternative sources of this story which state that it wasn’t
actually Marsyas who challenged Apollo but Apollo who challenged Marsyas because
of his jealousy of the satyr’s ability to play the flute. Therefore, hubris
would not necessarily be a theme in this tale; rather the capricious weakness of
the Gods and their equally weak nature in comparison to humans.
There are several versions of the contest; according to Hyginus, Marsyas was
departing as victor after the first round, when Apollo, turning his lyre upside
down, played the same tune. This was something that Marsyas could not do with
his flute. According to another version Marsyas was defeated when Apollo added
his voice to the sound of the lyre. Marsyas protested, arguing that the skill
with the instrument was to be compared, not the voice. However, Apollo replied
that when Marsyas blew into the pipes, he was doing almost the same thing
himself. The Muses supported Apollo’s claim, leading to his victory.
Ovid
touches upon the theme of Marsyas twice,
very briefly telling the tale in
Metamorphoses
vi.383-400, where he
concentrates on the tears shed into the river Marsyas, and making an
allusion
in
Fasti
, vi.649-710, where Ovid’s primary
focus is on the aulos and the roles of flute-players rather than Marsyas,
whose name is not actually mentioned.
The wise Marsyas
The hubristic Marsyas in surviving literary sources eclipses the figure of
the wise Marsyas suggested in a few words by the
Hellenistic
historian
Diodorus Siculus
, who refers to Marsyas as
admired for his intelligence (sunesis) and self-control (sophrosune),
not qualities found by Greeks in ordinary satyrs. In
Plato
‘s Symposium, when
Alcibiades
likens Socrates to Marsyas, it is
this aspect of the wise satyr that is intended. Jocelyn Small identifies in
Marsyas an artist great enough to challenge a god, who can only be defeated
through a ruse. A prominent statue of Marsyas as a wise old
silenus
stood near the
Roman Forum
.
This is the Marsyas of the journal Marsyas: Studies in the History of Art,
published since 1941 by students of the Institute of Art,
New York University
.
Prophecy and
free speech at Rome
Among the Romans, Marsyas was cast as the inventor of
augury
and a proponent of free speech (the
philosophical concept παρρησία, “parrhesia“)
and “speaking truth to power.” The earliest known representation of Marsyas at
Rome stood for at least 300 years in the
Roman Forum
near or in the
comitium
, the space for political activity. He
was depicted as a
silen
, carrying a
wineskin
on his left shoulder and raising his
right arm. The statue was regarded as an indicium libertatis, a symbol of
liberty, and was associated with demonstrations of the
plebs
, or common people. It often served as
a sort of kiosk
upon which invective verse was posted.
Marsyas served as a minister for Dionysus or Bacchus, who was
identified by the Romans with
their
Father Liber
, one of three deities in the
Aventine Triad
, along with
Ceres
and Libera (identified with
Persephone
). These gods were regarded as
concerning themselves specially with the welfare of the plebs. The
freedom that the
ecstasies
of
Dionysian worship
represented took on a
political meaning in Rome as the
libertas
that distinguished the free from
the enslaved. The
Liberalia
, celebrated March 17 in honor of
Liber, was a time of speaking freely, as the poet and playwright
Gnaeus Naevius
declared: “At the Liberalia
games we enjoy free speech.” Naevius, however, was arrested for his
invectives
against the powerful.
Marsyas was sometimes considered a king and contemporary of
Faunus
, portrayed by
Vergil
as a native Italian ruler at the time of
Aeneas
.
Servius
, in his
commentary
on the
Aeneid
, says that Marsyas sent Faunus
envoys who showed techniques of augury to the Italians. The plebeian
gens of the
Marcii
claimed that they were descended from
Marsyas.
Gaius Marcius Rutilus
, who rose to power from
the plebs
, is credited with having dedicated
the statue that stood in the Roman forum, most likely in 294 BC, when he became
the first plebeian
censor
and added the
cognomen
Censorinus to the family name
. Marcius Rutilus
was also among the first plebeian augurs,
co-opted
into their
college
in 300, and so the mythical teacher of
augury was an apt figure to represent him.[28]
The Torment of Marsyas (Le Supplice de Marsyas),
Louvre Museum
,
Paris
.
In 213 BC, two years after suffering one of the worst military defeats in its
history at the
Battle of Cannae
, Rome was in the grip of a
reactionary fear that led to excessive
religiosity
. The
senate
, alarmed that its authority was being
undermined by “prophets and sacrificers” in the forum, began a program of
suppression. Among the literature confiscated was an “authentic” prophecy
calling for the institution of
games in the Greek manner for Apollo
, which the
senate
and
elected officials
would control. The prophecy
was attributed to Gnaeus Marcius, reputed to be a descendant of Marsyas. The
games were duly carried out, but the Romans failed to bring the continuing
wars with the Carthaginians
to a victorious
conclusion until they heeded a second prophecy and imported the worship of the
Phrygian Great Mother
, whose song Marsyas was said to
have composed; the song had further relevance in that it was also credited by
the Phrygians with protecting them from invaders. The power relations between
Marsyas and Apollo reflected the continuing
Struggle of the Orders
between the elite and
the common people, expressed in political terms by
optimates
and
populares
. The arrest of Naevius for
exercising free speech also took place during this period.
Another descendant of Marcius Rutilus,
L. Marcius Censorinus
, issued coins depicting
the statue of Marsyas, at a time when the
augural college
was the subject of political
controversy during the
Sullan civil wars of the 80s BC
On the coin,
Marsyas wears a
Phrygian cap
or
pilleus
, an emblem of liberty. This Marcius
Censorinus was killed by
Sulla
and his head displayed outside
Praeneste
. Sulla’s legislative program
attempted to curtail power invested in the people, particularly restricting the
powers of the plebeian tribunes
, and to restore the dominance
of the senate and the privileges of
patricians
.
Marsyas was also claimed as the
eponym
of the
Marsi
, one of the ancient peoples of Italy.[34]
The
Social War of 91–88 BC
, in which the
Italian peoples
fought to advance their status
as citizens under Roman rule, is sometimes called the Marsic War from the
leadership of the Marsi. The Roman
coloniae
Paestum
and
Alba Fucens
, along with other Italian cities,
set up their own statues of Marsyas as assertions of their political status.
During the
Principate
, Marsyas became a subversive symbol
in opposition to
Augustus
, whose propaganda systematically
associated him with the silens’ torturer Apollo. Augustus’s daughter
Julia
held nocturnal assemblies at the statue,
and crowned it to defy her father. The poet
Ovid, who was ultimately exiled by Augustus, twice tells the story of
Marsyas’s flaying by Apollo, in his epic
Metamorphoses
and in the
Fasti
, the calendrical poem left unfinished
at his death. Although the immediate cause of Ovid’s exile remains one of
literary history’s great mysteries, Ovid himself says that a “poem and
transgression” were contributing factors; his poetry tests the boundaries of
permissible free speech during Rome’s transition from
republic
to
imperial monarchy
.
Pliny
indicates that in the 1st century AD, the
painting Marsyas religatus (“Marsyas Bound”), by
Zeuxis of Heraclea
, could be viewed at the
Temple of Concordia
in Rome.[39]
The goddess
Concordia
, like the Greek
Harmonia
, was a
personification
of both
musical harmony as it was understood in antiquity
,
and of social order
, as expressed by
Cicero
‘s phrase concordia ordinum. The
apparent incongruity of exhibiting the tortured silen in a temple devoted to
harmony has been interpreted in modern scholarship as a warning against
criticizing authority.
In later art
Athena and Marsyas: the discovery of the aulos in an
imaginative recreation of a lost bronze by
Myron
(Botanic Garden,
Copenhagen
)
In the art of later periods,
allegory
is applied to gloss the somewhat
ambivalent morality of the flaying of Marsyas. Marsyas is often seen with a
flute
,
pan pipes
or even
bagpipes
. Apollo is shown with his
lyre, or sometimes a
harp, viol
or other stringed instrument. The
contest of Apollo and Marsyas
is seen as
symbolizing the eternal struggle between the Apollonian and Dionysian aspects of
human nature.
Paintings taking Marsyas as a subject include “Apollo and Marsyas” by
Michelangelo Anselmi
(c. 1492 – c.1554), “The
Flaying of Marsyas” by
Jusepe de Ribera
(1591–1652),
“The Flaying of Marsyas”
by
Titian
(c. 1570-1576) and “Apollo and Marsyas”
by
Bartolomeo Manfredi
(St. Louis Art Museum).
James Merrill
based a poem, “Marsyas”, on this
myth; it appears in The Country of a Thousand Years of Peace (1959).
Zbigniew Herbert
and
Nadine Sabra Meyer
each titled poems “Apollo
and Marsyas”. Following Ovid’s retelling of the Apollo and Marsyas tale, the
poem “The Flaying Of Marsyas” features in Robin Robertson’s 1997 collection “a
painted field”.
In 2002, British artist
Anish Kapoor
created and installed an enormous
sculpture in London’s
Tate Modern
called “Marsyas”. The work,
consisting of three huge steel rings and a single red
PVC
membrane, was impossible to view as a whole
because of its size, but had obvious anatomical connotations.
There is a bridge built towards the end of the
Roman
period on the river Marsyas that is still
called by the satyr’s name, Marsiyas.
Marcus Antonius Gordianus Pius (January
20, 225
–
February
11
, 244
),
known in
English
as Gordian III,
 was
Roman
Emperor
from 238 to 244. Gordian was the son of
Antonia Gordiana
and his father was an unnamed Roman Senator who died before
238. Antonia Gordiana was the daughter of Emperor
Gordian I
and younger sister of Emperor
Gordian II
.
Very little is known on his early life before becoming Roman Emperor. Gordian
had assumed the name of his maternal grandfather in 238.
Following the murder of emperor
Alexander Severus
in Moguntiacum (modern
Mainz
), the
capital of the
Roman province
Germania Inferior
,
Maximinus Thrax
was acclaimed emperor, despite strong opposition of the
Roman senate
and the majority of the population. In response to what was
considered in Rome as a rebellion, Gordian’s grandfather and uncle, Gordian I
and II, were proclaimed joint emperors in the
Africa Province
. Their revolt was suppressed within a month by Cappellianus,
governor of Numidia
and a loyal supporter of Maximinus Thrax. The elder Gordians died,
but public opinion cherished their memory as peace loving and literate men,
victims of Maximinus’ oppression.
Meanwhile, Maximinus was on the verge of marching on Rome and
the Senate elected
Pupienus
and Balbinus
as joint emperors. These senators were not popular men and the population of
Rome was still shocked by the elder Gordian’s fate, so that the Senate decided
to take the teenager Gordian, rename him Marcus Antonius Gordianus as his
grandfather, and raise him to the rank of
Caesar
and imperial heir.
Pupienus
and Balbinus
defeated Maximinus, mainly due to the defection of several
legions
,
namely the
Parthica II
who assassinated Maximinus. But their joint reign was
doomed from the start with popular riots, military discontent and even an
enormous fire that consumed Rome in June 238. On
July 29
,
Pupienus and Balbinus were killed by the
Praetorian guard
and Gordian proclaimed sole emperor.
Rule
Due to Gordian’s age, the imperial government was surrendered
to the aristocratic families, who controlled the affairs of Rome through the
senate. In 240,
Sabinianus
revolted in the African province, but the situation was dealt quickly. In 241,
Gordian was married to Furia Sabinia
Tranquillina
, daughter of the newly appointed praetorian prefect,
Timesitheus
. As chief of the Praetorian guard and father in law of the
emperor, Timesitheus quickly became the de facto ruler of the Roman
empire.
In the 3rd century, the Roman frontiers weakened against the
Germanic tribes across the
Rhine
and
Danube
, and the
Sassanid
kingdom across the
Euphrates
increased its own attacks. When the Persians under
Shapur I
invaded Mesopotamia
, the young emperor opened the doors of the
Temple of Janus
for the last time in Roman history, and sent a huge army to
the East. The Sassanids were driven back over the Euphrates and defeated in the
Battle of Resaena
(243). The campaign was a success and Gordian, who had
joined the army, was planning an invasion of the enemy’s territory, when his
father-in-law died in unclear circumstances. Without Timesitheus, the campaign,
and the emperor’s security, were at risk.
Marcus Julius Philippus, also known as
Philip the Arab
, stepped in at this moment as the new Praetorian Prefect and
the campaign proceeded. In the beginning of 244, the Persians counter-attacked.
Persian sources claim that a battle was fought (Battle
of Misiche) near modern
Fallujah
(Iraq)
and resulted in a major Roman defeat and the death of Gordian III[1].
Roman sources do not mention this battle and suggest that Gordian died far away,
upstream of the Euphrates. Although ancient sources often described Philip, who
succeeded Gordian as emperor, as having murdered Gordian at Zaitha (Qalat es
Salihiyah), the cause of Gordian’s death is unknown.
Gordian’s youth and good nature, along with the deaths of his
grandfather and uncle and his own tragic fate at the hands of another usurper,
granted him the everlasting esteem of the Romans. Despite the opposition of the
new emperor, Gordian was deified by the Senate after his death, in order to
appease the population and avoid riots.
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